The ever-increasing complexities of automotive traffic require wider use of roadway striping to direct traffic in required patterns. Some traffic striping, such as interstate highway lane marking, is done most economically by spray painting. However, this technique is not practical for many other pavement striping applications in urban areas and particularly where a longer-lasting and more durable stripe is desired. As a consequence of this, a second technique has evolved which consists of utilizing paper or plastic tape to stripe pavement in the necessary patterns for traffic guidance. The present invention constitutes an improvement over the prior art in this second category or technique utilizing tape. Briefly, the invention seeks to provide a method and an apparatus for applying striping tape directly onto fresh hot asphalt pavement during the final rolling of such pavement. In the invention, the action of the pavement roller is directly employed to pull marking tape or tapes through a guide means forming an attachment to the rolling machine. The tape or tapes are withdrawn automatically from a supply roll or rolls of the attachment and the customary tape backing paper is automatically stripped from the tape and wound up and stored on a second spindle spaced from and driven by the spindle carrying the tape roll or rolls. The striping tape, tape supply rolls and the backing paper winding spindle are all driven directly by the pavement roller without requiring any separate drive motor or other power means. The method and apparatus are characterized by extreme simplicity and economy and thus constitute a great improvement over the more complex and costly prior art.
Customarily, in the prior art, special machines separate from the basic pavement rolling machine are utilized to apply striping tape to already-completed pavement. Frequently, such machines include other attachments, such as pavement heaters and roughing brushes to prepare the pavement surface to accept the tape. The great advantage and economy of the present invention is its ability to apply the striping tape to the fresh hot paving material during the rolling thereof and utilizing the rolling machine to install the tape and power the tape dispensing attachment all during one simple operation, thus dispensing entirely with the need for a second separate machine for installing the tape.
To comply with the duty to disclose known prior art under 37 C.F.R. 1.56, the following prior United States patents are made of record herein: U.S. Pat. Nos. 1,895,045; 2,898,825; 3,404,057; 3,415,706; 3,844,669 and 4,030,958.
Various additional features and advantages of the invention will become apparent to those skilled in the art during the course of the following description.